Fiat 500 Electric practicality and safety

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• Not a large car, so great to drive in town
  
• Plenty of room in the front – less in the rear
• Boot space is adequate for a small weekly shop

How much space is there?

It’s best to temper your expectations for the Fiat 500’s practicality. This isn’t a large car, nor is it meant to replace your family hauler – it’s a city car, and as such the rear seat and boot aren’t designed to accommodate great volumes.

With that in mind, it’s pretty competitive with the likes of the MINI Electric and Honda e for interior space, though the latter does have the benefit of having four doors. Fiat has revealed a really interesting three-door variant, with a sole rear-hinged back door similar to an old MINI Clubman. However, it’s not yet confirmed whether we’ll get this option in the UK.

There is at least plenty of room in the front seats for drivers of all shapes and sizes, while the centre console’s cut away to allow you to scoot across to the other seat and exit from either door – a really useful feature in a tight parking space.

The rear seats are best kept for children or short journeys with adults. Isofix points feature on the rear bench, but head and legroom are both very limited, and access through the front doors can be awkward.

Boot space and storage

With 185 litres of space on offer, the Fiat 500 splits the gap between the Honda e’s 171 litres and the MINI Electric’s 211. It’s easily access through a large rear hatch and the rear seats can fold down in one simple motion to allow for larger items to be carried. The 500’s sloping roofline limits overall space, though, and the seats don’t go totally flat.

Storage in the front is disappointingly uninspired. You get well-sized door bins and a useful shelf underneath the infotainment screen – this holds a wireless charging pad which, as the 500’s available with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, means you may never need a trailing power cable again.

But there’s only one cupholder, and the glovebox is more like a hole in the dash with a trapdoor over it – certainly, it’s far too deep to access anything inside while you’re driving.

Safety

• No Euro NCAP score yet
• Loaded with safety kit
• Old car only scored three stars

Euro NCAP hasn’t tested the new Fiat 500 yet. The old model scores a disappointing three stars, mainly due to its lack of advanced safety aids. However, this is an all-new car based on a new platform, which means Fiat’s been able to bring it well up-to-date with safety equipment.

In fact, Fiat claims top-end models are the first city cars to have Level 2 Autonomous Driving through a series of systems called Fiat Co-Driver. This is basically a combination of adaptive cruise control, lane-keeping assistance, and traffic sign recognition.

You can also have parking assist, blind-spot monitoring, a rear-view camera, driver attention alert and autonomous emergency braking. This is a really impressive list of equipment for such a small car, so it would seem Fiat’s taking safety very seriously for the new 500.

Of course, Euro NCAP’s safety tests will take this all into account along with the car’s crash performance.